HIV Awareness Figures Up, Study Finds
TORONTO — A surprisingly high two-thirds of all Americans who are infected with the AIDS virus already know it, health officials reported Sunday.
Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 775,000 Americans carry HIV and at least 500,000 have been tested and know their status.
The CDC research is the first careful attempt to arrive at this figure using infection data from the states. Until now, many experts had guessed that about half of all HIV-infected Americans were aware of their status.
“This is encouraging, because it suggests that the majority of persons with HIV have been tested,” said Dr. Patricia Sweeney, who directed the study.
Some experts are pushing for more widespread AIDS testing now that treatments exist that can delay and perhaps stop HIV’s destruction of the immune system. Doctors believe that the sooner treatment starts, the better the chance of controlling the disease.
The data suggest that the problem of undiagnosed infections may be smaller than previously believed. Nevertheless, they also mean that 275,000 Americans are unaware of their HIV infections and are not getting early treatment.
Sweeney presented her findings at an infectious disease conference sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology. Another CDC study presented Sunday demonstrates the importance of the new treatments for prolonging lives.
Sweeney’s figures were based on the cases of infection reported to the CDC through June from 25 states where doctors are required to report the names of patients who carry the virus.
In these states, 240,000 people were known to be living with AIDS, and 76,000 more were infected but not sick. The researchers used these data to estimate the number of diagnosed infections in the states without mandatory reporting of HIV infections.
The researchers say their two-thirds estimate is conservative because it does not include people who learned of their HIV status through anonymous testing.
* AIDS WALK
A record crowd raises at least $3 million in Hollywood. B3
